True Widow - As High As The Highest Heavens And From The Center To The Circumference Of The Earth

It's a very sludgy sound, the one that True Widow has. The glacial pace, the heavy distortion, the downtuning (maybe drop-d? Or half tuned down) and the unsettling atmosphere make As High As The Highest Heavens And From The Center To The Circumference Of The Earth a strange record.
Actually, it's not sludge, it's more like a lo-fi venture into shoegaze, only not too saturated, maybe only the slightly morose, distant approach to voice is what would somewhat make it qualify as shoegaze.
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It's a very sludgy sound, the one that True Widow has. The glacial pace, the heavy distortion, the downtuning (maybe drop-d? Or half tuned down) and the unsettling atmosphere make As High As The Highest Heavens And From The Center To The Circumference Of The Earth a strange record.

Actually, it's not sludge, it's more like a lo-fi venture into shoegaze, only not too saturated, maybe only the slightly morose, distant approach to voice is what would somewhat make it qualify as shoegaze.

Whatever genre this one will be pigeonholed (or shoehorned) only time (and the reviews) will tell. So let's talk about the actual music True Widow make. Songs are long, think 7 minutes long, very droney but never boring. The sound is not clean enough to make it completely soothing, but juxtaposing this slow drone to a voice delivered like a comforting lull, well, it's pretty nifty.

Strangely enough, and this is where it feels like the longwinded album title is reflective of the music, the following two songs, 'NH' and 'Skull eyes', invert the voices: now the male voice goes on the crunchy, smouldering crawl through purgatory while a female voice guides us through a night drive in 'Skull eyes'. Suddenly the title of the album, referring to distances and concentric spaces, makes a lot of sense: it's a reflection of how True Widow approaches their music.

This discipline is repeated a few more times, but not overtly so, it's more about particular moments in their songs. There's a short song called 'Interlude' (less than a minute) that feels connected (at least in spirit) to the album's behemoth-like closing track, 'Doomseer'. Now the voices are combined, now the crunching distortion and ethereal atmospheres are mixing and it makes for a real attention grabbing track if you dedicate time to consume it and digest it.

It is a true test of patience and tolerance, that's what I would say about this album on a first go, especially if you're in the group of people that want the lighter, fluffier stuff. Suffice to say, the atmospheric sound eventually grows on you. The mysterious disembodied voice, sometimes way in the back, like an echo lingering in a deserted hallway, adds to the otherworldliness of the album. True Widow have no rush in letting their sound come across, so if you want to listen to something really dreamy (a word I seem to be overusing a lot), check this out. It's gloomy but never overtly depressing.